LOS ANGELES — If the Lakers looked like a team ready for the All-Star break in their Feb. 12 road loss to the Utah Jazz, then Wednesday’s 100-97 loss to the Charlotte Hornets at Crypto.com Arena showed what can happen when a team is away from the court for an extended period.

Because from the onset, the Lakers and Hornets played with a sloppiness of teams that looked like they hadn’t played in a week.

The teams combined for 37 turnovers (18 for the Lakers) and shot a combined 38.6% from the field (70 for 181).

But it was the Eastern Conference’s 14th-place Hornets (14-39) who made the plays when it mattered the most, outscoring the hosts 63-49 in the second half to hand the Lakers (32-21) their second consecutive loss. The Lakers, already facing one of the toughest remaining schedules in the NBA, bookended their All-Star break with defeats against two of the league’s worst teams.

“Overall, I think we played, I don’t even know, 39-44 minutes of pretty poor offense,” Coach JJ Redick said after his team was held under 100 points for the first time since a Jan. 7 loss in Dallas. “And some of that’s to be expected. Some of it was sloppiness, some of it was poor spacing, some of it was poor execution. The reason I’m not going to read too much into that is because I think our guys competed and they played extremely hard.

“I also think Charlotte played very sloppy. I’m not, that’s not to make an excuse. That’s just the reality of just having six days off as a group and trying to integrate new pieces. That happens sometimes.”

LeBron James led the Lakers with 26 points (16 in the fourth quarter), 11 assists, seven rebounds and a pair of blocked shots, but he missed a pair of late 3-point attempts that would have tied the game and sent it into overtime.

Rui Hachimura added 17 points, eight rebounds and three assists, but missed a pair of late free throws. Dorian Finney-Smith (12 points, five rebounds, three assists) also scored in double figures and was 4 for 6 from 3-point range on a night when the rest of the Lakers shot 11 for 45 from behind the arc.

Luka Doncic, playing in his third game with the Lakers, finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists, but struggled with his shot (5 for 18 from the field, 1 for 9 from 3-point range) and taking care of the ball (six turnovers – five in the first quarter).

“Obviously it’s going to take a little time,” Doncic said. “A lot of rustiness for my part. Started the game with like four or five turnovers. That can’t happen. So, just got to play basketball the right way.”

The Hornets outscored the Lakers 43-32 after Austin Reaves (eight points on 3-of-9 shooting in 27 minutes) was assessed a pair of technical fouls and ejected from the game after a brief exchange of words with referee Rodney Mott late in the third quarter.

“I get the first one, obviously, I approached him – I vocally said what I needed to say,” Reaves said. “And the second one, I was surprised. I’m walking away. And as soon as I heard the whistle, I kind of knew what had happened. But, I felt like it was quick. [Jarred Vanderbilt] told me after the game that Rodney said that you said it three times, so I guess that third time is the charm of getting the second tech. So I got to do better.

“I just don’t know the fine line of … I’ve been in the league for four years now and I’ve heard many things said to the refs from certain people and nothin’ to be done, I guess, but when it’s unexpected from somebody, that’s when I guess the biggest issues happen. So like I said, I gotta be better. I don’t need to put myself in that position.”

The Lakers led 65-57 at the time of Reaves’ ejection, but Charlotte went on an 18-1 run immediately after Reaves was ejected, putting the Hornets ahead 75-66 early in the fourth after the Lakers led by as much as 13 in the third. The Lakers missed 10 straight shots during a 6:39 span.

“It deflated us a little bit,” James said. “You lose a big piece like that. He had every right to argue the missed call. But what he said after that, I don’t think it warranted getting kicked out.”

James added of the explanation of Reaves’ ejection: “That he said the F-bomb too many times. But he said it in the beginning and he left it alone. He said, ‘It’s pretty obvious.’ I think Rodney thought he said it again. But he didn’t say it again.”

After a James-led comeback, Doncic made a putback that gave the Lakers a 94-93 lead with 1:03 left, but the Hornets regained the lead at 96-94 on a corner 3-pointer from Nick Smith Jr. with 48 seconds remaining.

Hachimura drew a shooting foul on the Lakers’ ensuing possession but missed both free throws.

LaMelo Ball made a contested finger-roll layup over Vanderbilt to put the Hornets ahead 98-94 with 14.2 seconds left.

James then made a 3-pointer out of a broken play to bring the Lakers within 98-97 with 6.8 seconds left.

The Lakers intentionally fouled Ball on the Hornets’ ensuing possession, with the former Chino Hills High star making both free throws for a 100-97 lead with 6.3 seconds left. James then missed a pair of 3-point attempts on the final possession as Charlotte won for just the second time in 11 games.

“Those last two were pretty good looks,” James said. “The first one was, obviously, much better than the second one. The second one had to be rushed a little bit. But I had good looks. We had good looks all night.”

Miles Bridges (29 points) and Ball (27) broke down the Lakers’ defense several times in the fourth quarter, attacking Doncic and a defense that is still learning how to play without Anthony Davis as its rim-protecting anchor.

“I don’t think anybody thought that it was gonna click right away,” Reaves said of their struggles on offense and defense. “I think everybody knew that there was going to be some growing pains and trying to figure out how do you … run everything, to be honest. Luka is, you know, a one-of-a-kind player, top-three players in the league, and he’s got to be comfortable being himself because, like I said, he’s one of the best players in the world so we need him to be him. It’s just going to take, you know, couple games, couple weeks, to figure out, you know, what that best looks like.”

Mark Williams had 10 points and nine rebounds for Charlotte in his first game since the Lakers acquired the center in a trade and then rescinded the deal.

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“He was never a teammate,” James said of Williams. “He never stepped into the locker room. He never came [in]. We never seen him. We know the trade went down, but we never seen him. So when it got rescinded, it was just back to what it was before. So it was no different.”

James played after sitting out of Sunday’s All-Star Game because of lingering left foot/ankle soreness, which he’s been listed on the team’s injury reports with consistently since December.

“JJ talked about it [on Tuesday], it’s gonna be something that we gotta manage for the rest of the season and going into the postseason,” said James, who shot 10 for 22 from the field 4 for 11 from 3-point range in 38 minutes. “But I was happy I was able to get some days off and kind of be around the clock.”

The Lakers continue a stretch of three games in four days on Thursday night in Portland.

“Obviously we’re going to need a little time just to adjust to everything,” Doncic said. “But I think it was fine today. I think we had some good opportunities to make shots, but we didn’t make any shots – especially me. So, it will just take a little time to get used to it.”